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Cultural studies is a field of theoretically, politically, and empirically engaged cultural analysis that was initially developed by British academics in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and has been subsequently taken up and transformed by scholars from many different disciplines around the world. Cultural studies is avowedly and even radically interdisciplinary and can sometimes be seen as antidisciplinary. As cultural studies scholar Toby Miller has written, "cultural studies is a tendency across disciplines, rather than a discipline itself." Although most practitioners of cultural studies are professional academics, Gilbert Rodman has argued in his 2015 book, ''Why Cultural Studies?'', that the field must be understood to include some non-academic cultural analysts and practitioners as well as academic ones. A key concern for cultural studies practitioners is the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives. The field of cultural studies encompasses a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives and practices. Although distinct from the disciplines of cultural anthropology and ethnic studies, cultural studies draws upon and has contributed to each of these disciplines. Cultural studies concentrates upon the political dynamics of contemporary culture, its historical foundations, defining traits, and conflicts. CS researchers generally investigate how cultural practices relate to wider systems of power associated with or operating through social phenomena, such as ideology, class structures, national formations, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender and generation. Cultural studies views cultures not as fixed, bounded, stable and discrete entities, but rather as constantly interacting and changing sets of practices and processes.〔"Cultural studies" is not synonymous with either "area studies" or "ethnic studies," although there are many cultural studies practitioners working in both area studies and ethnic studies programs and professional associations (e.g. American studies, Asian studies, African-American studies, Latina/o Studies, European studies, Latin American studies, etc.).〕 Cultural studies combines a variety of politically engaged critical approaches drawn from and including semiotics, Marxism, feminist theory, ethnography, critical race theory, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, social theory, political theory, history, philosophy, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, communication studies, political economy, translation studies, museum studies and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies and historical periods. Thus, cultural studies seeks to understand how meaning is generated, disseminated, contested, bound up with systems of power and control, and produced from the social, political and economic spheres within a particular social formation or conjuncture. Important theories of cultural hegemony and agency have both influenced and been developed by the cultural studies movement, as have many recent major communication theories and agendas, such as those which attempt to explain and analyze the cultural forces related to processes of globalization. During the rise of neo-liberalism in Britain and the US, cultural studies both became a global force/movement, and attracted the ire of many conservative opponents both within and beyond universities for a variety of reasons. Some left-wing critics associated particularly with Marxist forms of political economy also attacked cultural studies for allegedly overstating the importance of cultural phenomena. While cultural studies continues to have its detractors, the field has become a kind of world-wide movement that is to this day associated with a raft of scholarly associations and programs, annual international conferences, publications, students and practitioners, from Taiwan to Amsterdam and from Bangalore to Santa Cruz.〔Bérubé, Michael (2009), ("What's the Matter with Cultural Studies?" ), ''The Chronicle of Higher Education''.〕〔("Cultural Studies Associations, Networks and Programs" ), extensive, but incomplete, list of associations, networks and programs as found on the website for the Association of Cultural Studies, Tampere, Finland.〕 Somewhat distinct approaches to cultural studies have emerged in different national and regional contexts such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Italy. ==Characteristics== In his 1994 book, ''Introducing Cultural Studies'', Ziauddin Sardar lists the following five main characteristics of cultural studies:〔Sardar, Ziauddin and Van Loon, Borin (1994). ''Introducing Cultural Studies.'' New York: Totem Books〕 *The aim of cultural studies is to examine cultural practices and their relation to power. For example, a study of a subculture (such as white working class youth in London) would consider their social practices against those of the dominant culture (in this example, the middle and upper classes in London who control the political and financial sectors that create policies affecting the well-being of white working class youth in London). *The objective of cultural studies includes understanding culture in all its complex forms and analyzing the social and political context in which culture manifests itself. *Cultural studies is a site of both study/analysis and political criticism/action. (For example, not only would a cultural studies scholar study an object, but s/he would connect this study to a larger, progressive political project.) *Cultural studies attempts to expose and reconcile constructed divisions of knowledge that purport to be grounded in nature. *Cultural studies has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society and to a radical line of political action. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cultural studies」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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